Greetings Experts!

On this, your "home group" page, you will be writing a brief article about what you learned about each of the topics: Alcatraz, Al Capone, autism, and the Great Depression. Each of your paragraphs should paraphrase the five w's, h + double w that you learned. Pretty much, you are writing a brief article about what you learned, making sure you answered who, what, where, why, when, how and why it is important. Your group will be reading your page, and the others in the class, to learn about all of the topics.


Al Capone

Alphonsus Capone, one of the most well know gangsters, was born on January 17, 1899, in Brooklyn, New York. As a kid he dropped out of school in 6th grade and was part of 2 kid gangs. When he was older he hospitalized a rival gang member so he moved to Chicago with his wife, Mary Coughlin. There he killed many people. The most famous one was when his men were dressed as police officers and shot 7 enemies. Al Capone also owed a lot of tax money so he was sentenced to 11 years of prison. The first part was spent in the Atlanta Federal Prison and the rest was in Alcatraz. He went to Alcatraz on August 22, 1934 and was released on November 16, 1939. He spent the rest of his life in Florida and died on January 25, 1944.

One of Al Capone's mug shots.
One of Al Capone's mug shots.

One of Al Capone's mug shots.

One of Al Capone's mug shots.
http://www.chicagohs.org/history/capone.html
"Al Capone." History Files. January 24,2012.

Alcatraz

Alcatraz is an island off the coast ofSan Francisco. Some of theUnited States, most dangerous criminals lived there. From murders to bank robbers,Alcatrazwas a place almost impossible to escape. The prison was also known as “the rock” for the small amount of vegetation.

In 1775 Lt. Juan Manuel de Ayala, a Spanish explorer, charted the island and named it “de los Alcatraces.” In 1859 a military fort was built by the army to defendSan Francisco bay. When Alcatraz became prison, theU.S. government operated it.

In 1934 Inmates arrived on Alcatraz including Al Capone one of the most dangerous gangsters inAmerica. “During the 29 years of the prisons operation, there were over 14 attempted escapes fromAlcatraz, in which 34 different men risked there lives to flee from “the rock” between 1934 and 1936 thirty-six inmates tried to escape. Some escapes were violent and one inmate killed an officer with just a hammer just to get out of prison. Twenty-three of the thirty-six inmates were recaptured, seven were shot and killed, three drowned, and three were on accounted for.

A normal day for inmates was waking up at 6:30. They would have twenty-five minutes to clean up and be counted. At 6:55 they would head to mess hall and have twenty minutes to eat before starting work day.

After several yearsAlcatraz shutdown in 1963 because operations were to expensive. After it closed, American Indians laid claim to the land in 1964 and 1969. June 10, 1971 the FBI, Special Forces police, and armed federal forces removed five women, four children, and six men from the island. Now Alcatraz is a museum open to the public to explore its history.
external image alcatraz-sepia.jpg
external image alcatraz-sepia.jpg



This is a picture of Alcatraz Island.This is where America’s worst criminals
were sent, including Al Capone.


http://www.nps.gov/alcatraz
"Alcatraz Island." National Parks Service. Web. 25 Jan. 2012.
http://www.alcatrazalumni.org/PAGE%203.htm
"Alcatraz Island." Index. National Parks Sevice. Web. 25 Jan. 2012. <http://www.alcatrazalumni.org
http://www.alcatrazhistory.com/rs1.htm
"Alcatraz History." Www.AlcatrazHistory.com/rs1.htm. Ocean View. Web. 25 Jan. 2012. <http://www.alcatrazhistory.com/rs1.htm
http://www.alcatrazhistory.com/
"Where the Voices of Alcatraz Come to Life..." Www.AlcatrazHistory.com. Ocean View. Web. 25 Jan. 2012. <http://www.alcatrazhistory.com/

The Great Depression

The Great Depression was a tragic event that happened in America in the late 1929s when the stock market crashed. The stock market crash of 1929 took off a chain of events that plunged the United States into its longest crisis in history.During the next three years stock prices in the United States continued to fall, until by late 1932 they had dropped to only about 20 percent of their value in 1929. Besides ruining many thousands of individual investors, this precipitous decline in the value of assets greatly strained banks and other financial institutions, particularly those holding stocks in their portfolios. Many banks were consequently forced into insolvency; by 1933, 11,000 of the United States' 25,000 banks had failed. The failure of so many banks, combined with a general and nationwide loss of confidence in the economy, led to much-reduced levels of spending and demand and hence of production, thus aggravating the downward spiral. The result was drastically falling output and drastically rising unemployment; by 1932, U.S. manufacturing output had fallen to 54 percent of its 1929 level, and unemployment had risen to between 12 and 15 million workers, or 25-30 percent of the work force.Because of this, prices skyrocketed up very high, almost more than anyone could afford. Plus, people started to lose money, since people started losing their jobs. Workers could no longer continue to fuel further expansion, so a slow down was not good.. There was a high percent of unemployment, which made everything worse. Because of the shortage of money and the ridiculous high prices, people started to do anything to get money. Which includes selling apples on the street and more. There were over 100 apple stands in just one small area. 90% of house holds owned precisely 0 shares of stock. Banks operated without guarantees to their customers, creating a climate of panic when times got tough. Europeans started buying less and less of America's items, which made everything worse. The Great Depression began in the United States but quickly turned into a worldwide economic slump owing to the special and intimate relationships that had been forged between the United States and European economies after World War I. The United States had emerged from the war as the major creditor and financier of postwar Europe, whose national economies had been greatly weakened by the war itself, by war debts, and, in the case of Germany and other defeated nations, by the need to pay war reparations. So once the American economy slumped and the flow of American investment credits to Europe dried up, prosperity tended to collapse there as well. The Depression hit hardest those nations that were most deeply indebted to the United States, i.e., Germany and Great Britain. In Germany, unemployment rose sharply beginning in late 1929, and by early 1932 it had reached 6 million workers, or 25 percent of the work force. Britain was less severely affected, but its industrial and export sectors remained seriously depressed until World War II. Many other countries had been affected by the slump by 1931. At least in part, the Great Depression was caused by underlying weaknesses and imbalances within the U.S. economy that had been obscured by the boom psychology and speculative euphoria of the 1920s. The Depression exposed those weaknesses, as it did the inability of the nation's political and financial institutions to cope with the vicious downward economic cycle that had set in by 1930. Prior to the Great Depression, governments traditionally took little or action in times of business downturn, relying instead on impersonal market forces to achieve the necessary economic correction. But market forces alone proved unable to achieve the desired recovery in the early years of the Great Depression, and this painful discovery eventually inspired some fundamental changes in the United States' economic structure. After the Great Depression, government action, whether in the taxation, industrial regulation, public works, social insurance, social-welfare services, or deficit spending, came to assume a principal role in ensuring economic stability in most industrial nations with market economies. The Great Depression ended around 1939.
migmoth.jpg
Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother," destitute in a pea picker's camp, because of the failure of the early pea crop. These people had just sold their tent in order to buy food. Most of the 2,500 people in this camp were destitute. By the end of the decade there were still 4 million migrants on the road.

Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother," destitute in a pea picker's camp, because of the failure of the early pea crop. These people had just sold their tent in order to buy food. Most of the 2,500 people in this camp were destitute. By the end of the decade there were still 4 million migrants on the road.

jobbureau.jpg
On Black Tuesday, October twenty-ninth, the market collapsed. In a single day, sixteen million shares were traded--a record--and thirty billion dollars vanished into thin air. Here, unemployed men vying for jobs at the American Legion Employment Bureau

On Black Tuesday, October twenty-ninth, the market collapsed. In a single day, sixteen million shares were traded--a record--and thirty billion dollars vanished into thin air. Here, unemployed men vying for jobs at the American Legion Employment Bureau
Source:
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/depression/depression.htm
http://www.ushistory.org/us/48.asp

Autism

Did you know that 1 in 110 children in America have autism? Well, its true! Kids with autism have a hard time linking their words together an communicating with others. Autism occurs in a persons brain. Unfortunately, autism isn’t possible to prevent. A child gets autism when their mother gets rubella during her pregnancy, this causes the child to possibly be diagnosed with autism. Signs for autism can be shown as early as 16 months to 1 year old. Some signs for autism are:
Avoids giving eye contact with others
Avoids physical contact with others
Says words or phrases repeatedly
Currently, autism isn’t curable. Autism is found more commonly in boys then in girls. 1 in 70 boys in the united states have autism. Autism is the fastest growing disease in the US.
The Autism Society of America
The Autism Society of America

The Autism Society of America
The Autism awareness ribbon shows many things; the multiple colors and patterns shows all the different people and families living with autism. The bright colors signal that there is hope through research. Then the puzzle pattern shows the complexity of autism.

Works Cited
"Autism." Autism. Nemours. Web. 23 Jan. 2012. <http://kidshealth.org/kid/health_problems/brain/autism.html>.
"What Is Autism? | Autism Speaks." Autism Speaks |. Autism Speaks Inc, 2005. Web. 23 Jan. 2012. <http://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism>.